High Court gives green signal to Odd-Even scheme in Delhi

Reacting on several pleas filed against Delhi Government’s much hyped Odd-even formula, Delhi High court today denied any interference in state’s notification.

The Delhi HC said that the scheme wil continue till Jan 15^th, as decided by the government.

A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath said that “power of judicial review cannot be extended to determine correctness of such policy decision”.

“Keeping in view that restrictions under notification are only for a limited period of 15 days and it is stated that the scheme has been enforced as a pilot project to ascertain the reduction, if any, of pollution levels, we are of the view that interference by this court is not warranted,” it said.

The court also said in its 12-page order, “Implementation may have caused hardship to a section of the society, however, the power of judicial review cannot be extended to determine the correctness of such policy decision or to find out whether there could be more appropriate or better alternatives.”

“It’s neither within domain of the courts nor the scope of judicial review to embark upon an enquiry as to whether a particular public policy is wise or whether a better public policy can be evolved as suggested by petitioners,” the bench added.

It also observed that “law is well settled that on matters affecting policy, courts will not interfere unless the policy is unconstitutional or contrary to statutory provisions or arbitrary or irrational or in abuse of power."

“Since, the policy decisions are taken based on expert knowledge of person concerned, courts are normally not equipped to question the correctness of a policy decision,” the bench said.